Some Photos To Go With The Longest Blog EVER.

Krampus

 Ski Time #1

Talent Show

Schladming Christmas Market

30 Sec. to Mars Concert

Ski Time #2

Austrian Dancing

Austrian Dancing

Grad!

Grad!

Redoing The Tables

Last Day Ladies

 Hello There New Zealand

A Great Ending to a Fantastic Journey..

So I am sitting in the Singapore Airport and reflecting on the last 3 weeks of life. They were pretty interesting. Saturday was awesome, the Saturday outing was going to the Salzburg Christmas Market. So we all gallivanted onto the big Planai bus and headed to Salzburg, an hour long ride later we were there and it was beautiful! Christmas trees everywhere and lights all around, and it was cold; just how Christmas time is supposed to be. You enter the market and it is rows upon rows of stalls filled with things that my mother would completely adore; little nic-nacs and do-dads, and some stalls sprayed this smell in the room that smelt like Christmas. If anyone wants to know what Christmas smells like it is Vanilla, Orange and Cinnamon; we asked. So we were at this one stall and you hear this super, incredibly loud North American say “Oh my gosh! Look at that! How cute is that!”. Soooo North American and annoying that Shelly, Emma, Larissa and I decided that we didn’t want to be North American anymore and so we adapted our accents into British ones. That went on for about an hour. How fabulous. The only things I bought were an ear stretcher (it is this awesome, small wooden swirl one) and a mug that says ‘Salzburg Christmas Market’ on it. So the market was great and all but so crowded and we were all used to good ol’ little Schladdy in a down season that we couldn’t handle the crowds and went to a coffee shop for two hours. The Mozart Cafe actually. Fancy. I have no idea how I am going to go home to a big city when small towns are so incredible. Afterwards we looked through once more, bought some amazing food stuff and headed to the bus. There was live music and it was just so magical! Imagine you had a magical powder that you poofed into the air and the best Christmas came out, this was it. After the great bus ride home with my wonderful roomie, Larry to accompany me we arrived at Schladdy right in the middle of Krampus Night.
What is a Krampus you might ask? I’d actually like to know the answer as well. On Friday Martin comes into the room and warns us, “So tomorrow there is a annual tradition festival thing, people get dressed up as demon like creatures and go around hitting you with sticks. It is tradition that goes way back in Austrian history (I zoned out a bit here.. so I am not super sure what the tradition was all about..) But it was some kind of demonic thing.” He continued to tell us how when he was young he would put on like 5 pairs of pants and go out and hit the Krampus’s with sticks to provoke them and then run like crazy as they chased them. The whole time he had a huge grin on his face, he encouraged us to go and check it out because it is a thing only Austria has! You may now be asking, “But MacKenzie, aren’t you at a Bible School? Why do they want you to go to a Demon Festival?” Why? Well because according to Martin not a soul who is dressed up knows the actual history behind it. They just do it as like a competition and a great excuse to get hammered (not that Austrians need an excuse..) So we all wanted to go check out the Krampus’s.
We get off the bus, run to eat dinner then head out to brave the Krampus’s. I have to say I was pretty scared. You here this huge sound of metal on metal cause they are all wearing things that look like a cow bell on steroids on their butts. So the main street of Schladming is blocked off and you have to pay to go in, but we just stood on the end of the street and they would open the fence to let the groups of Krampus’s out, it was actually better here cause they really interacted with you. So the first half hour of you time you just want to pee your pants. These things are soooo creepy. And they are all at some sort of level of drunk. So they have this swagger that is like a ‘I’M GOING TO KILL SOMETHING’ Swagger. But then they take their masks off and you are like woah, you are just a normal person underneath. We had a few cheeky monkeys with us *coughWill,Kenton,Danielcough* who ran up and hit them so that they would get hit back. William got chased a good couple of times, once they actually picked him up and brought him into a crowd of other Krampus and they were all attacking him. It was hilarious! And poor Danish, for some reason they always targeted him. Liz, wins the Miss. Gutsy award. After you get kinda immune to their appearance they aren’t so scary unless they come right up to you and like growl. Not okay. So anyway, Liz just walks into these groups of Krampus and hits one on the arm “Hey! Hey! Can I have a picture!?” So thanks to her being amazing, we all have photos with the Krampus. One guy smudged black stuff on our faces. But there were some pretty awesome looking ones! One group was on stilts so they were super tall and another group had a car thing with loud music and one Krampus dangling from a crane type thing that was attached to the car. So cool, a really fun experience, I am with Martin! And for all the mother’s out there it was safe (well about as safe as you could make it..) there were police and each Krampus had a number on their butt so if they did anything too bad they’d know who it was. The bad night is apparently Dec. 5th where it is the unofficial one and there are just a bunch of drunk guys going crazy. Needless to say, I stayed at Tauernhof that night.. But it was family group night and some groups go into town and poor Kaitlynn got pinned down and attacked and has these wicked marks on her legs now. I got a bundle of sticks and enjoyed hitting some people with it  But of course I asked them first and they were silly enough to say yes.
So after a glorious night of encountering the Krampus’s a small group of people went skiing on Sunday! Well actually there were only 3 skiers and about... 10 snowboarders. So I haven’t skied in at least 6 years. I was a kid on training wheels. As for the other two skiers, Helen was good but hadn’t done it in a good long while as well and Thomas is staying at T-hof to be a ski instructor (enough said). So I thoroughly entertained the whole mountain as I fell down the whole mountain. It is a little bit shaming when there are 5 year olds flying down the mountain, and ski teams there training and you are just learning. It was not a beginners slope either, because it hadn’t snowed yet it was all manmade snow and super icy. And steep. So icy + steep + clumsy = an extremely bruised MacKenzie. Thankfully Thomas attempted to help me learn how to be a professional skier, but it all takes time people. We made a video of my wonderful skiing, so maybe I’ll put it on FB. But apparently I did really good considering the conditions were crap. But hey, it’s the Alps! I shant complain. My two best wipe outs? Or should I say most painful cause there were a lot more that I am sure looked awesome; for instance I went off the course into the trees.. Okay most painful; I was skiing right? And then suddenly out of nowhere there was a mound of snow (piled up around a plastic pole) and I went right over the mound and I swear it felt like a did some sort of flip. I wacked my head on the ground pretty wonderfully but I had a helmet on so yay! So that hurt. The next one? So you know how it was just man-made snow on the actual run? Then the snow would just stop and there would be rocks. So I decided that snow was boring and rocks would be funner. Needless to say I went off the run and onto the rocks and fell producing some incredibly nice bruises on my buttocks. I lost my ski’s a good couple times. After one wipe out right next to a group of stupidly amazing tweens I could hear Thomas saying “She’s Canadian!” As if that is a good excuse. Ha. So the hill consisted of two parts, a rather nice slope that was good for learning then a CRAZY steep one. We went down probably about 6 times, each time I fell probably at least 3 times. On the steep one I would usually get about half way down fall and slide/roll the rest of the way down. Afterwards we went to McDonalds. YUM! So that was my first experience skiing on the Alps! I had fun though. Falling is great.
So the last couple of weeks before I had been praying about and really wanting to stay at T-hof for the winter season. It is just such an incredible place and I just never want to leave. Plus I hadn’t been in the snow for sooo long so that was a bonus as well. In my mind the Scholarship that I have with AU allowed me to start using it in Semester 2 (July) So it was actually possible for me to stay, cause that is one of the main reason I had to come back. So I had even asked Maja if there was space in the kitchen but she said no, but if anyone cancelled she’d let me know. So the Tuesday after this glorious weekend after lunch Lothar comes up to me and says, “Hans-Peter wants to see you.” First of all I thought ‘Crap, Alex and I stayed up til 3am reading the silly Me book and he is going to tell me off.’ Second thought ‘Holy crap. He is going to ask me to stay for winter.’ I walk in, “MacKenzie, look so we need one more person in the kitchen for winter.” HOLY CRAP. I start freaking out a bit like really!? Really!? Um Um Um Um. “Do I have to tell you right now?!” “Yes.” “Um um um um Can I tell you tomorrow?” “Yes.” So as I proceed to freak-out he sits there in all his glory and is emotionless. That is why we all love HP. His poker-face. So as I walked out in a daze my mind is going crazy! How incredible, I prayed specifically for this and bang it happened. Liz was like DO IT! Answer to prayer there is not even a question about it. But there were things I had to sort out, like could I really not use my scholarship until July? And also I’d miss the big family Christmas with G+G H. And U.B. and A.N. But on the other hand I could stay there for winter and ski all the time and just continue to love it there. There were so many factors that all rolled into it. I sought advice from a couple of people I really respected, prayed like a madman, sent 500 emails. It was crazy. The next 2 days was spent doing this. It turned out I would have to use my scholarship in March. So I told Martin and HP that I could stay until Feb. And they said they wanted someone for the whole season (until April) but if they couldn’t find anyone they’d let me know. But the more I thought about it, for only an extra 2 months there I’d miss out on a lot and I’d come back and rush into uni. In the end, obviously they found someone else and I am now heading home. I found out on the following Sunday that there was a girl taking it so that was the end of that dream.
What is the lesson I learned? Well some people would argue, ‘You prayed specifically for that, God answered the prayer so obviously he wants you to stay.’ But the more I thought and prayed about my decision the more I started to think, okay God is just showing me that there are options. I can count on him to answer prayer. I need to put the decision in his hands, but at the same time actively make a choice and trust that if that choice is just allll wrong, he will kick me off that path, he holds all the power in the universe so why would I doubt that? Even when the choice is not always the one you might most like to do.. and bam, I had my devotion idea ready for Friday. :D (every morning after breakfast someone gives a devotion and mine was on the last morning of the last full day.. :O)
We had an amazing lecturer that week named Steve Volle, by far my favourite. He is the principal of Bodenseehof (Torchbearers). It was awesome cause on Wednesday he did a lecture on decision making. :D But he was so fun. This is how he got to know who I was, so after Alex and I had stayed up til 3am reading we came to breakfast a little bit out of it and going mental from over tiredness. He was sitting at our table. What a great way to meet a lecturer. We bonded over burnt toast and poof! A friendship was born. The rest of the week I would always say HI STEVE!! A little too enthusiastically maybe... and by Friday when I said GOOD MORNING STEVE!! He said, Good morning MacKenzie. To which I replied, oh you learned my name!! Good job. I was pretty proud. Anyways, I thought Steve was so awesome that Bodenseehof is now on my list of Torchbearers to go to. :D Good work Steve!
And this brings me to my last week at Tauernhof. Oh I forgot to mention the Talent show! It was on Friday. Soooo good, holy moly our school was so full of incredibly talented people. Musicians, dancers, funny people we had them all! Alex and I had the privilege of hosting it. Heh heh. We were so tired and not feeling it that our humour was just crazy super dry. It was wonderful. The next day was spent getting my dear father his Christmas gift, driving up to Ramsau, going to Artisan (twice..) and general hanging out and me still thinking about whether or not to stay here. But in the night time.. oh the excitement... So the Planai ski-mountain right next to Tauernhof officially opened that weekend so they have this huge outdoor concert. You have to pay to get in but you can just stand outside the fence and look over and you are pretty much at the concert for free! So all us poor Bible School students did the second option.. Pretty sure half of T-hof was there! Dancing like fools to the starting person who was some chick from England trying to be Lady Gaga. Her songs at least you could dance to. But it had horrible words, like ‘I’m going to kill my boyfriend!’ So we would shout at the top of our lungs, ‘I’M GOING TO LOVE MY BOYFRIEND. LOVE!! NOT KILL!! ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE!’ And in-between songs we sang Hark the Herold Angels Sing. After which I got offered alcohol.. I don’t blame them. We were all so hyper I would have thought we were drunk too. Not too many creepers which was nice. Just one guy who like made a b-line for me and just stood there staring at me. I got awkward and in those situations I tent to giggle.. but thankfully one of the guys stood in-between. Gotta love men. So 30 Seconds to Mars, the main act comes on and it was so sad, everyone started leaving! They were good..but not super good. A little boring really. But we stayed anyway cause we LOVE dancing.  Plus as a bonus, once the crowds cleared and you could see the ground again we found 5 bucks in change! Woo! Go us. Sunday morning I skyped my parents and then 20 minutes after I went to breakfast and asked the girl who was considering it if she was going to say yes and she said yes so there was my answer! New Zealand here I come.
Monday! Great, normal day, new lecturer – Richard Dahlstrom; who’s daughter I was room-mates with for 6 weeks during the summer! She was an Upward Bound instructor, if you look back at my blogs you’ll find her name, Kristi. So that was exciting, I told him that and also the fact that I have been wearing her yellow crocs for the last 2 months and he too got excited. Monday evening was our last family group session, sad! My family had a chip & dip night. It was perhaps a bit too delicious and I ate a lot of dip. My poor room-mates paid the price.. But afterward Liz, Alex and I had another reading party in my bathroom! What is this reading party you may ask? It is when we take a bunch of pillows (from an undisclosed location..) put them in the floor of my bathroom and sit there til the wee hours of the morning ‘reading’. We bought energy drinks this time too. However.. sadly this party probably consisted of about half talking (about boys obviously, well not the whole time but a lot of the time..) and half reading and half going crazy from over tiredness. So fun. Liz and I shared my top bunk and Alex slept on the floor. Ha, in the morning Larissa almost stepped on Alex “Sian! There is a person here!!” “What!? No. Who!?” So funny. Not much happening Tuesday, that I can’t remember. Probably because of my NO SLEEP.
Oh! Wednesday was exciting. For sports afternoon we went skiing again!!! Except this time I went with people who had never even touched ski’s before. So it was a change of crowd but still so fun. It was the first day that it snowed from the sky as well! Not from big yellow machines! So that actually made it hard.. cause you can’t see where you are going. But I didn’t wipe out so hard this time! It was a different, easier run. Only bad wipe out is when I fell and my legs went over my head and so I was sitting there with my butt in the air. So beautiful. But it was so crazy for me to think, ‘A week from now I will be in Auckland in summer. When right now I am skiing in the Alps. :O’ But sooo much fun! Liz hated skiing. So cute. And Alex grew up in Africa so that was exciting. So we got back, had dinner and then we had AUSTRIAN DANCING!! Yay! I love love love it so much. No one really had any Dirndls or Lederhosen though but it was still awesome. So we did some Austrian dancing from about 7.45pm til 10.45pm. Dance the night away! Hans Peter Plutz soooo cute. We discovered that lederhosen gives men diaper bum. Heh. He used me as a dance partner example once, I felt pretty dang special. And we got to eat some apfelstudel! YUM! So after Austrian dancing a small amazing group of people, (Danish, Tim, Kenton, Alex, Mel, Shelly, Me, Emma and William) went sliding down the Planai! It was incredible! You get all bundled up then you hike up a ways and you slide down on your butt. But usually end up rolling around and flailing down the mountain. Snow gets everywhere. But then you have to try and go to bed high on adrenaline. Okay! Thursday.. lets see.. pretty normal day I think.. I had one last mother-daughter-sister date  and in the evening the river named the Talbach had lights set up along it and singers and musicians! So we went and checked that out and supported some of our T-hof talents. So cold but really pretty. All the little run-offs that go into the river were frozen. Gorgeous! But super slippery.
I, along with those around me, have noticed something about Ice and myself. We just aren’t friends. There is no hope of a good relationship between us. I love the snow and the cold but Ice and I.. Ice always trips me up and makes me fall over, A LOT. I got quite the rep. the last couple of weeks for constantly falling over. For instance on this Talbach walk I had to link arms with people to avoid disaster. But I don’t mind! I love falling. It is fun. Plus you get great bruises and usually awesome stories. Example: Liz and I were walking from the Lecture Hall to the Main house and I just completely fell on my butt and gained the name ‘Bambi’. Example: Connor was being a poop like usual and so I decided to race him down the stairs. I thought I could be all tomb-raideresque and miss a couple stairs.. bad idea MacKenzie. I jumped (valiantly I might add) ended up landing on my knees on the last stair and falling straight on my face. I was wearing rip jeans so I got a rug burn on one of my knees and one of the rips I had fixed burst open. It was fun though! Caused a good number of laughs.  I also discovered that I am horrible at spilling things. Walking back to the Lecture Hall from the Main House after coffee break EVERY DAY coffee would end up on my arm. I was also sitting on Shelly’s bed with coffee once.. can you guess what happened? Yup. Coffee. On the pillow and bed. Stained the mattress..  Hence how I got the nickname; Dori. After I received this nickname we decided to watch Finding Nemo to see if I truly was like Dori. The entire movie, a select few kept repeating ‘THAT IS SO MACKENZIE!’ ‘DORI DORI!’ ‘JUST KEEP SWIMMING!’. Wonderful isn’t it?
Anyway!! Wow. I got distracted.. Friday is when the tears started showing up. For me it started when I did my devo. at breakfast, talking about how I had to go home even if it was hard blah blah blah, then you get to that point where you can’t talk so you are just standing there trying to hold in the tears. A couple escape. The room is dead silent. I manage to finish then Martin comes up and hugs me and I run to my seat and cry on Emmer. Great start to the day! We then had a worship, prayer, baby lecture, sharing time and there was crying. Liz was singing and that made me cry. Sigh. It was so nice though seeing how people have grown sooo much over the last 3 months, you feel so proud and they are not just friends but brothers and sisters. Then there was a lot a picture taking, even though we all looked like crap cause we had cried so much. Everyone was writing notes for each other  Then we had a beautiful lunch of soup and Kaisershmar’rn YUM! The afternoon was spend with people running around trying to pack before the room check at 4pm. Somehow my room-mates and I had time to go on one last date. I ended up just chucking all my stuff into a box and bringing that box to the room I was going to stay in for the next 3 nights. Then we all got dressed up all fancy and went to the glorious dinner. It was so beautiful and delicious, salad, main and tiramisu for dessert! Everyone was looking fine all dressed up nice and pretty, making already beautiful people even more beautiful (if that was possible). We ate in our family groups  Then we had our grad ceremony! So I was really, really hyper during the ceremony and kept on cracking up. Eis just kept looking back at me and laughing like I was going crazy. We sang some songs, Richard said a few quick words, some more songs then we each got called up separately and hugged Martin, Luke, Philip and Elizabeth while getting all kinds of papers. I was really hyper and I was rubbing off on Emma. It was so much fun. There is nothing like a ceremony as an excuse to be really, really loud. The staff goes up and I of course go crazy cause I love them. When Martin calls my name I decided that it would be a good idea to kiss Elizabeth on the cheek. Success! Much to her adorable awkwardness. Afterwards there was a crap load of photos taken, a glorious dance party in the Lecture hall where Helen and Thomas showed us some interesting... German songs. After dancing for a good long while we went to Maria’s where I had my Radler! It was wonderful. So we returned and a couple of us decided to watch some Scrubs because everyone was sitting around being sad and I couldn’t handle it. Scrubs is a great distraction, and so we did that late into the night. A pretty fantastic night if you ask me.
This brings us to Saturday morning, doomsday. First of all, a crap load of people left before breakferst. Not okay! Including my beloved roomie, Larissa. And so the morning started off with tears again. (Larry I love you!) Breakferst, where there were some more tears, a great devo by Elizabeth and some Adele singing. Then there were more good-byes. There were about 10 students staying for the weekend to help clean, a couple staying for the whole week. So we had to start cleaning at 10 meaning I had to say bye to the rest of my room-mates! (I love you guys) and go clean. At least I got to clean with Nat, who as I am cleaning I hear her talking to herself. I think hmmm maybe she is listening to a lecture and just agreeing.. nope she was listening to her German learning thing and repeating words! I had a good giggle. It was a horrible day filled with horrible good-byes. My dear sister Alex. Then at 6pm Liz, the Danish’s and a few others were leaving. Liz cried so hard on my shoulder that her nose started bleeding. Then Danish (moustache, not hair) and I had a super awkward hug where you know when you both go for the same side? Yup. So afterward I attack hugged him and he fell on the chair behind him and it was gloriously awkward. Ha. Oh and he let me touch his moustache! Which I had been asking to do pretty much the whole 3 months. It’s a rocking moustache. So that night to get out heads out of sadness Emma, Shelly, Kenton, Thomas, Timmy, Jenny, Connor and I hung out in the foyer (where Tim played us some wonderful tunes) , went to Papa Joes (where we learned how to flip a toothpick in your mouth.. and ate a super spicy pepper.. hit our heads on the super low lights.. took super flattering photos..) and then! We all went and had a Planai sliding party. We played on the mountain for about 2 hours. First you have to manage to climb up without sliding or falling down the whole way. Then you get to the top and we all held hands and slid down together or wiped out together.. Poor Jenny’s pants fell down and she got like snow burn! Ouch. Then we started just playing around at the bottom slope and going down on the sleds and finding creative ways to do it. For instance, Kenton, Tim, Thomas and I all piled up on each other and tried going down that way. It was a pretty nasty, yet glorious wipe out. My face made a crunching sound when it hit the snow.. But it was so fun!! I love snow. Stupid New Zealand for not having snow. Or cold Christmas’s! What is that!? After this fun party we danced around Stephan’s car while he blasted music and went to bed. I’d say it was a pretty dang fantastic night.
Sunday morning sun is shining through my window pane! Ain’t no place I’d rather be. Wake up early to say bye to Tim (I love you and I can’t wait to work in Italy with you!) Back to bed.. Breakferst yum! Then we cleaned the dining rooms and redid the plastic and decorations on the tables. It looks pretty fine!! Hahah Shelly and Emma decided to put one of the decorations crooked just to bug the Germans. It will work. Cause it bugged me! Hahah I spend the afternoon packing and writing notes. Then I really had to go out and do something because I could feel the water works wanting to turn on so we went to Maria’s. We all smelt like crappy smoke afterwards but oh well. People discovered that I was a Children’s Entertainer (not a clown!) and enjoyed themselves about that fact.. We destroyed a lot of toothpicks.. But generally a good time. Came back and didn’t want to go to bed even though we were sooo super tired cause that means you have to wake up and that means that it is a new day, the day I was leaving. After trying to procrastinate by checking out the Tenne, having a tiny kitchen party with some bread, erdnuss crème and hasole I was drifting. It was bed time. Sigh.
BEEP. Monday morning has arrived. The day of departure. I did so well all morning not a tear shed while I had the morning off to finish packing and writing notes. Probably because I was by myself with awesome music. It was whenever I’d look at someone that the tears would explode. Then at about 11am I go to check my emails and there is a FB wall post from Liz saying I MISS YOU SOOO MUCH. Here they come! Tears, tears and more tears. I don’t think I have cried so much ever. I feel like not even when I moved to New Zealand did I cry that much. I went and cried on Emma. Then had to go finish packing. They stopped for a while. Then it was lunch time. Great. Last meal. We are standing around helping out and Julia comes and hugs me and bam. What do you know!? More tears. So that spout stopped and I go sit down, it is just a normal lunch until Hans Peter gets up to make the announcements and he says, “We have some students leaving us today, including MacKenzie (my head hits the table cause I could feel the tears) who has been with us for quite a while. Hopefully Tauernhof won’t fall apart without her. It was a pleasure having you.” My head stays down for a good couple minutes. So after lunch I attempted to run away to clean tables but nope, the goodbyes started. Liz, Luke, Martin, Liselotte. This was going to suck. So I escaped upstairs but then the ski instructors had to leave to go ski and so I came back down and as soon as I turned to corner and saw Connor, Thomas and Philip standing there the water works started up again. Then Shelly (my dear I will see you again <3) Ugh. Then the whole rest of Tauernhof. Lothar, Nat, Julia, Sarah, Jess, Kaitlynn, Anna, Micah, Steph, Emma, Nathan. Kathrin drove us to the train station where we bumped into Elizabeth! So I got to say bye to her.
I am so thankful that I was on the train to Salzburg with Mel and Jenny. If I was by myself I don’t think I would have been able to handle it. I probably would have jumped off and ran back. So we get to Salzburg and I say bye to Mel and Jenny. Then I wondrously find the right bus to the airport, get to the airport and I ask to check on my extra bag. She says that she will go check it out. After a good long while she comes back and tells me that my ticket only allows me to pay for extra luggage per kg. It is 40 euro per kg and in total I’d have to pay 600 euros. I was like :O But then she went on to say that they were going to make a special exception and just charge me the price of an extra bag which was 60 euros! So amazing. They could probably tell I had been crying like a baby straight from the womb. It was a good trip, hardly anything worth mentioning happened which is great considering my trip there was a nightmare. On my first long flight I sat next to a Finnish couple, I feel bad cause I didn’t talk to them at all. I probably looked like someone died. And the next long flight it was this super cute old Asian couple, I still hardly talked to them but I did a little and she gave me a hug when we got off the plane. So cute.
So I get through customs all fine and come out of the arrivals gate and Saskia and Mum are standing right there! I run to hug Saskia and then proceeded to hug everyone else who was there. Shivon and Radley were there too!! So sweet. My grandparents and my family. Of course, I cried. Not a lot though but I think I was just crazy overwhelmed. We went to McDonalds and got me coffee then went home.
It is really weird being back. So surreal. This morning I woke up and thought that I was still at Tauernhof and that I had to say goodbye to everyone all over again. It is really humid and warm. Last night I asked Mum if we could buy a cutlery bucket for the table. The idea of having internet anywhere in your house boggles my mind. What should I eat for breakfast? Gee I don’t know I don’t have Lothar to tell me what to eat. It almost feels like if I didn’t have the photos as proof it didn’t actually happen. So even though it is crazy weird and I know that it is going to take me a good little while to adjust to normal life, it will happen eventually and I know that this is where I am supposed to be. Studying Anthropology and German next year at uni. You can’t stay at Tauernhof forever, gotta rip the band-aid off at some point even though it hurts like crazy.

The Length Mankind Can Go..

Mankind is ridiculous. Today we went to Mauthausen, a concentration camp in sorta northern Austria. Every room you walked into you just had the thought 'I wonder how much pain and sadness happened in this room.' run through your head. You walked through the back gate that opens up to a courtyard where all the prisoners got sorted and had their clothes and personal posessions taken away. You go up some stairs and through the side door of the main entrance to the area where they had 'Role Call'. And we just slowly wandered through the camp listening to our audio guides. I am pretty sure that there wasn't a single person who didn't get effected. The worst was the execution chambers; including a gallows, gas chamber rooms, cremation chambers, a disection table and a giant fridge type room where they kept the dead bodies for burning. There was three stone walls and an electric wire fence where lots of people 'commited suicide' or were just executed. There was also a memorial park with statues dedicated to different countries and a quarry you could also go down to. First you had to walk down the 'Stairs of Death' and the 'Parachuting' place where people jumped or got pushed off.
Overall it was a pretty gloomy day.
But you could also look at it like this, I am so blessed that I never had to live in a time like that.

There Once Was 14 People In Venice..

Okay, okay. Here I am sitting down and writing this blog. I have to admit that I am getting worse at blogging and more and more unmotivated to blog. But I will still do it anyway! Just don't expect them often anymore.. With only 5 weeks left there won't be many more blogs anways!
So I know all of you are itching to know what Venice is like. Well it is a gorgeous city, the architecture is so amazing and old and so unique. The whole concept that the city is built on water is just so crazy. You would be walking around and suddenly you remember, oh hey! There are no cars anywhere. Because there are no streets! However I would say that the people in Venice are what make knock it down on the level of awesomeness. It was pretty dirty and smelt like poo a lot. Probably because you could see poo on the ground. They just don't take care of and respect the incredible city that it is and it holds so much potential!
It all started at 10.10am when we got on the train and started to make our way to Venezia, all 14 of us! A rather great group of people though. We rode a train, then changed our train, then got a bus that was to take 3 hours (hooray..) But I was sitting next to Bre so it wasn't so bad. :D The mountians on the way were ridiculous. So cool and different to Schladming mountains. We listened to music, chilled and found super interesting ways to sit on a bus.. Then we arrived in Venezia! But just the corner of the island and, after a long adventure trying to find a bathroom only to have to pay 1.50 Euros to go pee, we caught a train back to the mainland to find our hostel. After getting lost and almost knocking on a random persons house thinking it was the hostel we finally found it; Villa Dori. We walked into the lovely foyer to sign in and we found out that the booked us wrong, instead of them booking us for Friday and Sunday night (which the website said was all that they had available and so then we were just gonna wing it Saturday night) the booked us for Friday and Saturday night. So we were like oh really!? Awesome! So then can we just have Sunday as well? And BAM. God provided us with a hostel without us even having to look for one on Saturday night. Go God. :D
It was so gorgeous in the front area and had a super nice restaurant attached. We judged the book by its cover. We got to our rooms and after thinking the door was a window then a door again and not being able to find the key hole but eventually finding it we got inside. Liz, Emma, Sian, Larissa and I were staying in one room and just over yonder in the room next to us was Ben, Cullen, Jake, Ryan and Michael. Bre, Kaitlynn, Joelle and Hanna were staying at a different hostel about a 10 minute bus ride away. Our room smelt like old people. But it was generally nice, it was one big room that had a table and 3 beds then a hallway with a side room with 2 beds and a great big bathroom. That included a normal toilet and a bum cleaning toilet (I never tried it..) Oh yes and this spiral staircase going down in the corner of the room with a locked door at the bottom.. We had dinner at the restaurant (Emma, Larry and I had a nutritous dinner of Hasole (cheap Nutella) and bread yum! While others had pizza..) and went back to our room and chilled then it was bed time! So the boys go to their room and we are getting ready for sleeping when a knock comes to the door "We have bed bugs! Check your beds!" Long story short the girls room didn't have bed bugs and the boys went to the front desk and got their sheets changed. Oh but we did have a decent amount of hair and dirt.. We were also a little freaked out by the spiral staircase going to nowhere so we all pushed our beds together and Emma and I shared a single bed. It was cozy..
Saturday started with a bang! Catching the bus to the island. Oh yes. So we make a 'plan' "Okay guys if we get split up the last bus leaves at 12am" that was it. No one except for Captian Cullen knew which bus stop it was and little did we know that Venice - not so nice at night time. So we walk for literally 5 mintues after arriving at 11am and I decided to look in a store (see my mom passed on the gene for the love of tourist stores..) and Liz says she'll go with me. And that is how the Incredible Adventure With Liz and MacKenzie started. We looked around left the store couldn't see anyone but wasn't worried. Saw 4 out of the 14 said hi, asked them where they got their coffee and got some (amazing) coffee. We proceeded to walk around looking in almost every store. Then I realized that Larissa was holding the majority of my money in her fanny pack and I only had about 15 Euros on me. No worries we will meet up with them soon (?). We got gelato which is amazing! Wandered around looking at stores and going down random allies and taking a billion photos of just Liz, or just Mk or both of us. We have so many profile photos to choose from. At about 3pm we thought it would be nice to find the others so we could have dinner with them so we retrace our steps go over a bridge only to find neighbourhoods and empty streets so we retraced our steps again went over the same bridge walked down the same street but went further down; we had this street memorized. We started to think that maybe we should have planned a place to meet up for dinner.. at this point it was about 6pm. What I love is that we had no idea what the famous places were in Venice and ended up passing a couple not even knowing where we were. For instance the Rialto Bridge, yup we thought that it was just a bridge so we took a photo on the bridge.. but not of the bridge. So at this point we were getting pretty tired and hungry and Liz only had 20 Euros the the both of our dinner and bus ride home. We got some food and went to sit down in this courtyard that we had passed 50 times. We were sitting there talking and eating and we had just accepted that we weren't going to find them and that we should make our way to the bus stop so we don't have to bus late at night with the creepers. We just prayed and I was saying "Oh I wish we could find them.." When we hear a "HALLELUJAH!" it was Emma! I ran into her arms and there was a lot of hugging and happiness on everyone's part. Turns out that they had spent the whole day together as a group of 8 going to all the main tourist spots in Venice. But I still am glad that Liz and I had our day, it was fun. :D We head to McDonalds (which was actually so expensive) and hang out there until we were supposed to meet up with Hanna, Jake, Kaitlynn and Joelle who had left as well. Liz and I were so happy to have Captian Cullen back to guide our path.
Interesting Saturday in Venice story time! So Liz and I are both blonde and blue eyed.. not a common gene in Italy. So we had our fair share of 'looks', "Bella, Bella!" and strange noises on our awesome adventure. Also we were chilling at McDonalds and this old man comes over to us and starts speaking Italian to me and starts doing dancing actions so I grasped that he wanted to take me dancing? Meanwhile I am telling him "I don't speak Italian. I don't speak Italian." He didn't care. And an Italian couple next to us was laughing so we asked them what he was saying and they said that he was crazy and that we shouldn't listen to him. So Drunk Old Italian goes over to them for a while, then comes back to us and is leaning over Cullen talking angrily at him; generally awkward situation for all of us. Nevertheless he walked away and we asked the couple what he had said and they said that he said "F*** off" to us in Italian. How lovely. Then we were on the bus ride back home and yet another drunk old man started playing with Bre's hair. Just sorta touching it. But Ben stood up and got sorta inbetween Bre and the man. Ben, our hero. And that is pretty much it for Saturday. Liz showed us her 'Terry Fox Run' while we were walking back to the hostel.. Then we slept!
Sunday we left for the city at 11.15am (the hostel had a bus that took us straight there, yay for no public bus!), yet all the girls couldn't sleep in so we woke up at about 8 and had a great morning entertaining ourselves while the boys slept. We got in and met up with the other 4 girls from the different hostel and caught a boat to Murano where they make all the gorgeous Italian glass stuff. We watched a free glass blowing demonstration which was so cool but like in this tiny warehouse. I was picturing like this huge factory that you got a tour through. Nope. But it was still awesome. Then there wasn't a whole lot more to do there so we took pictures and caught the bus back to Saint Marco's Square which is like the big famous thing in Venice. After a super long boat bus ride, but a very pretty one where we got to see the sunset and this super cute little 5 year old boy sat next to me we got there and it was BEAUTIFUL! The buildings are so huge and just amazing. Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is. We walked around there for a bit then found a Hard Rock Cafe and went to eat there but descovered it was an hour long wait. No way. Hunger. Nom nom. So we found this random little restaurant that majorly ripped us off. We were the only ones in there (that is never a good sign) I ordered the Spaghetti because I promised Paige that I would and it was pretty good... but Lothar makes it better. :D Ben thought that the food we got was actually just microwaved food because it came out almost instantly after we ordered it and his lasanga was boiling hot on the outside and cold in the middle.. We also got charged a fee for just plain old ordering pizza. How kind of them. Oh well, its a city. 
So we left still hungry and started making our way back to the bus stop by food. Stopping here or there to look at the stores and buying some more gelato (NOM) and there were no creepy stories this time! We passed a guy that I am pretty sure was a pimp.. He was old and had the gold jacket on and the long hair and the 8 rings. We were all at the bus stop except for Jake and Hanna and the bus was there so we got on and Joelle, Bre and Kaitlynn waited for their hostel mate Hanna and we figured Jake could find his own way cause he had mentioned it before. We got back to the hostel, we saw a locust kicking back on the wall and just went and hung out in our rooms. Liz and I washed our feet in the shower. (We had bonded on Saturday.) Then it was bed time and getting later and Jake still wasn't back. We got a text from Hanna saying that they were safely at their hostel at about 10pm and at about 10.45pm we noticed Jake still wasn't back. Just at we noticed he walked past our door. Turns out he got off at the wrong stop and had to walk a really long time.
Monday was the day of our return to Tauernhof! We got into Venice early so we of course went to McDonalds again where we got our Wi-Fi fix and looked at the shops and then headed to the bus stop. A 3 hour bus ride of watching Glee, and a 2 train ride later we were back in Schaldming. It felt like coming home. Oh dear sweet Schladming with hardly any creepy men and streets that you don't need a map to follow. All the travellers reunited and it was so awesome.
Since Monday the week has gone by so fast. Our lecturer this week was Ridge Burns from California and he was talking on the Ten Commandments. He has some good things to say and some things that I didn't entirely agree with.. But as he repeated, it is a touchy and complicated subject. Last night we had an incredible 80's Dance Party where everyone went all out and dressed and there were games and 80's music. And today a small but awesome group of us hiked up a mountain! The Kufstein, to an 8 metre high cross. It was soo beautiful. I even had the guts to climb up the cross, freaked out a bit at the top then climbed down. Emma and I made a Lord of the Rings 'Get off the road!' video and Danish sang us his national anthem and tried to teach us Danish words. And if you don't know what Danish sounds like, it sounds like gibberish. 
Thus concludes this super long blog. My eyes are sore from staring at this stupid screen.

When It Is Cold Enough To Use The Good Ol' Outdoors To Refrigerate Your Liquids.

Okay so here is the super weird thing about today. It is October 16^th and this is the day that I would have been arriving back in New Zealand after galavanting in Canada with family and friends if I had not stayed in Austria. I feel the need to reflect on the last four months of my life and tell you guys how incredible they have been and how grateful I am for all your support and emails letting me know what you guys are up to even though I am not ‘present’ in your life at the moment. The last four months of my life in Austria have been an unforgettable life changing experience and I am so glad that I got to stay here 3 months longer than I was supposed to. But it will be just that much harder to leave. But how weird is it that this morning I would have been hugging and probably crying at the airport as I gave everyone who was there the biggest best hugs of their lives but instead I was watching the sunrise across the Austrian Alps. (and then I skype Lorna :D)

Yes, this morning there was a wake up call at 5.40am where a small group of dedicated students (about 20 of us) headed out on the Tauernhof cars to a mountain somewhere, after a ridiculously horrible windy road that made me wanna hurl we got to the parking lot and walked for about 15 minutes to this super tiny church that someone had built on the mountainside (literally mountain SIDE and it was about big enough to hold like 5 people). The sun was just starting to make the sky light up so we sat there taking 500 million photos of everything, the same mountains but oh! The sun had moved up a little bit, takes another photo. It was a very slow sunrise but it was an incredible view and amazing company so it was okay. So the sun rose, as it does everyday only this time I saw it! As Emma and I bounded down the mountain we thought about all those poor souls down in the valley who were sleeping in bed and how awake and amazing our morning was. Everyone should go see a sunrise sometime in their lives.

There was Sunday breakfast as usual where I ate so much I still feel full. And eating a lot after going up and down a ridiculously horrible windy road is not a good idea.

Oh yea! Then there was yesterday where we went to Hallstatt; one of the oldest towns in Austria and it apparently dates back to 2000 BC! I know. Crazy. It is a stunning town sitting on this lake that is pretty much in a hole, surrounded by mountain cliffs. So we wandered around talking 500 million photos of everything. We ended up at this church on the hill and Kenton, Liz, Sian and I decided that it would be a good idea to pay 1.50 Euros to go into this tiny room that we heard had skulls in it. (Cool right? Well that is what we thought..) it is this tiny shack type room and it apparently had 1,200 skulls in it and they were all stacked up on this table that went around the room and under the table was body bones. It was really freaky but interesting all at the same time. There were some more photos, a waterfall, eating lunch while looking over the town, a lady telling us off for taking pictures in her store, an awesome store with a bunch of wood stuff, a ‘second hand store’ (in which I would use the term loosely as it was pretty much just this hole in the wall that some lady had put all her crap that she obviously didn’t want anymore in it and made a sign out of cardboard saying ‘Second Hand Store’). We went to a Cafe where we found this man who had glasses on that magnified his eyes to like a bagillion, so we got Kenton to stand awkwardly sorta behind him and were like ‘You want a picture with those mountains right?’ and stole a ninja photo of him. We also got sorta free cups! Well you bought a coffee and you got to keep the cup. Awesome right? Who doesn’t love a free mug. Oh yes there were also toilets that were sexist. The guys, if they just wanted to use the urinal didn’t have to pay the 50 cent fee. But girls, oh but the girls had to pay 50 cents either way. Rude right? I thought so too. But that brought about a rather humorous joke that I chuckled at. Wanna hear a joke? Woman’s Rights. Heh. Heh. Sorry if there are any women’s rights activists out there. It has to be said with just the right amount of sarcasm. In the evening a small contingent of us watched The Passion of the Christ, which is super intense. But it was really well done I must say.

Yea so not much else happening in my life; normal week where exciting things happen every day so it just blurs together and I can never remember them when I sit down to write my blog. Oh! We went to Salzburg last Saturday and I spend way too much money shopping... I went to Annina’s birthday gathering last last Friday.. Kendra came back to visit last weekend! She had just finished travelling around with Ben (who lives off 5 euros a day and sleeps under bridges, so she had a lot of interesting stories) and she came back to get her luggage before she headed back to the states so it was nice to see her again J. On Friday we had our social night and this time we played a Schladming wide game of Capture the Flag which was awesome! Emma and I took this super back route and ran into Thomas and Marc and joined them and we like climbed up the side of the Planai and were like running through these fields and slipping and falling over and jumped over this ditch creek thing into a bunch of mud and killed a fair few trees then we get to Tauernhof where the flag of the opposing team is on the volleyball court. Thomas and Marc jumped over the fence to check it out but people started coming so Emma and I had to move quick so we jumped down behind the Lecture hall where there is this like alley that is super dark and creepy and we are hiding behind the corner and we hear Sian and Michael discussing whether or not they should go down and check it out. It was actually quite funny to listen to cause Sian was freaking out and was saying “Michael why don’t you have your flashlight!” But in the end Michael sucked it up and came down the alley, much to mine and Emma’s silent protests and got caught. But it was an awesome journey getting there where my jeans and shoes and now saturated in mud. :D

Yes so that is all the stories I can think of telling they world.
Until next time!

From Staff to Student

So this last two weeks of life have been pretty interesting. I went through the transition from staff to student at Tauernhof which I have to admit is not super easy. You just feel super confused about where you are supposed to be all the time. So last week was spent trying to convince my brain that I was no longer a staff member meaning things like, I could no longer use the kitchen door to enter the main house, but the main entrance. I could no longer walk through the kitchen. I no longer go to staff prayer/devotion in the morning. No free item from the bistro!! And of course I didn’t spend my whole day with Lothar and my fellow kitchen girls. But being a student is also amazing although you don’t get the perks. On the plus you don’t have to clean as much! However for my daily duty they put me on cleaning, you could imagine how thrilled I was.

Anyway.. the lectures have been incredible and I am learning so much! Subtle as things that I never even knew where in the Bible just pop up and are like WOAH. How cool is that? Last week Hans Peter went through Genesis and Creation which was incredible and this week we had a guest speaker from England that was part of this company called Sports Reach and they go around the world and play soccer with people and share God’s word. They all had really awesome accents and it was the ‘veteran’ team or as they liked to say the ‘Classics’. So there were all these 30-60 year old English guys and it was hilarious.

My fellow students are awesome. 31 Canadians, 25 Germans, 9 Americans, 4 from the UK, 2 Dutch and 1 New Zealander. So there are a crap load of Canadians everywhere and there is just so much sarcasm and it is a beautiful thing. However Nat has told me that I need to tone the sarcasm down and build people up instead, so I am trying. It is hard when there is 40 ridiculously sarcastic beings surrounding you to resist the sarcastic pull.

As a student you entertain yourself during your free time with copious amounts of volleyball, reading, ping pong, bouldering, slack lining and of course crocheting, because really who doesn’t like crocheting? I have taught numerous others how to and am making touques and headbands for those unfortunate souls who can’t crochet at all or are just not epic enough to try. So last Saturday we went on a ‘hike’ where you climbed a couple stairs from the parking lot for about an hour and got to this glorious lake that was gorgeous. Those brave enough to jump in the freezing mountain water endulged themselves while the others watched and laughed at how cold they were. Then we had to walk all the way back to Tauernhof. That took us about 3.5 hours? Yea no big deal. My hips were numb by the end. But it was so great just walking down the valley, it wasn’t steep but just flat so it was a casual 3.5 hour stroll really. A few girls and I stopped at a hutte and enjoyed ourselves a skiwasser and continued back down.

On Friday, as part of the social committee we planned a very extravagant and extremely awesome game. So the social committee members (about 11 of us) hid all around Schladming and the rest of the students had to find us, we had to sign their arm for one point and their face for two points. Larry (aka Larissa) and I got real intense and disguised ourselves super ninja like. She wore a hoodie with a hat and glasses and I wore a touque with glasses and a huge puffy jacket and we sat in a dark corner with our heads down and our hands in our pockets. I would say that we looked pretty dodge. But I brought my crocheting! So there was that.. I have also enjoyed a few outings with the staff and kitchen girls, even though I am no longer staff and a kitchen girl. We went to Hans Peter’s house for coffee and cake for Marina’s birthday on Tuesday and last night we went up there again and just hung out and Nat and I baked banana bread and it was good. Now, this Saturday as in yesterday we did what I have been wanting to do all summer; hiked to Guttenburghaus and Sinabell.

For the last 3 months of my life there has been this mountain outside my beautiful window up in the Whitehouse and from that beautiful window your eyes fell upon a mountain. This mountain has a name and is called the Schikenspitzer and has a huge glorious cross that I could actually see from the window on top of it. To the right of that mountain you see this hutte; Guttenburg Haus. I had to look at this mountain every single day for 3 months and it stared and me and called out to me “MacKenzie, please come climb me. Climb meee. Come up here. Please.” Every. Day. So you could imagine my excitement when I walked past the list of ‘Saturday Outings’ and saw ‘Guttenburg Haus and Sinabell’. Now the Sinabell is no Schikenspitzer but it is a mountain that is high and awesome! The day started with all us students super hyped and pumped up for this hike ahead of us. We got there and started and after about 20 minutes many of us were like, gahh why am I doing this. 2 ½ hours later we reached the hutte. It was a glorious hike but probably the longest one of just continuous uphill that I have gone on so that was challenging but you just enjoy the company around you and the scenery and time flies; before you know it you are at the top! We ate our lunch at the hutte and enjoyed some skiwasser (pronounced she-wasser) while some enjoyed the Kaiser-schmarrn. It was such a beautiful hutte in such a beautiful spot as well. It was so cool to see the opposite view, I am constantly looking up at the hutte and it was nice to look down onto Schaldming. Some people slept, others took 500 photos and some decided to climb the steel cords that were attached to the house.

After about 45 minutes, those who wanted to continued the hike up to the top of Sinabell; about a half hour hike up. Once you got to the top it was just incredible! You could see the entire Tauern- Region of mountains and if you turned around you could see behind the Dachstein-Region of mountains. It was amazing. After a few hundred photos up there we began the hike down the mountain. Along the way we met some ponies that wanted to be our friends, there was even a baby pony with them and he and I became good buddies as I fed him dandelions. We got back on the bus to go home and it just smelt like sweat and feet. For the most part everyone’s backs were saturated. Sweating is great. Many, including myself had a lovely little sunburn. Once we got back to Schaldming Emma and I thought it was a good idea to go jump in the river! So we did. Three times.. Later that night some brave fellows decided to have a hot sauce competition with peppers, Tabasco sauce and Frank’s Insanity Sauce. There was crying. There was red faces. It was brilliant.

Thus concludes the last two weeks of my life. Enjoy :D

An Austrian Birthday..

Oh why hey there world. Haven’t seen you around for a while! Life at Tauernhof has been pretty normal the last couple of weeks. Not many exciting stories to report. There have been movie nights, sitting on the parking garage looking at the incredible stars, a whole lot of crochet action happening. Like a lot, tons actually. We frequently have crochet parties in the afternoon when everyone is too tired to do anything else we will put on some girl movie like Miss Potter or Persuasion and crochet until our hearts are content. I am working my way away at a scarf, I figured that it would be so much cheaper to just make your own scarf but it turns out after buying all the crap load of wool you need to make a satisfactory sized scarf it cost the same if not more. Then there is all the hours you put into making it. Buying a scarf is generally cheaper and faster. But of course then there is all the joy and elation that making and completing your very own scarf brings! I am excited for that day to come. Mind you it might be in a year or two...

There has been a lot of eis eating.. hey even a staff outing last Saturday! We all walked up the Talbach and at dinner in a hutte in Rohmoos. However you this seems like a simple, fun and enjoyable task but the night before it was the kitchen girl named Kerstin and the housekeeper Julia’s last night here as they were leaving Saturday morning right after breakfast so we all decided to party it up in dear little Schladming. It was so not ready for this party to happen. We started the night at Maria’s but no one was there.. so then we went to our dearly beloved Cult Club. Which sounds really dodgey I know.. and it is a little bit.. interesting but pretty much it is a bar with a big dance floor and it is in like a basement. But it was Retro night! So all this music was from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s the best times, especially for dance music. So needless to say our feet did not leave that dance floor until roughly 1.30am. In the end it was just Kerstin, Matthias and I dancing like fools to MC Hammer and Michael Jackson, this activity while it was supremely fun resulted in a very sore and I suspect pulled butt muscle on my part. This made the walking up the slight hill that is the Talbach super painful and my walking pace which is already slow even slower. Poor Bastian and Josh kept me company while I limped in agony up the trail. Eis, Leo and Steve were behind us and I could sense their great concern for my well being through their laughter. Eis was even wearing Lederhosen. I got passed by a man in leather pants. Then at the hutte there was Schnitzel the size of your face and eis desserts the size of a road cone (okay maybe slight exaggeration..) but they were so incredible and we left the hutte all feeling very fat and full, yet satisfied.

After I hobbled back to Tauernhof which seemed to take longer than walking up the hill.. the ‘North American Clan’ as I like to call them (such a clan consists of Ben, Josh, Kendra and I; two Canadians and two Americans so we are even every time we fight..) decided to have a movie night as one of our final evenings together. So we all nestled into the Eagle’s Nest and watched Anchorman. Oh there was also some home video watching.. How you may wonder? Well I opened my birthday parcel from my parents and there was this ridiculously awesome Yoda USB stick and a note saying, there is a surprise when you plug it in! So I got all excited and brought it to the Eagle’s Nest so I could show my fellow N.A.’s and we go to plug it in, all of us frozen in anticipation as we watch and expect there to be some kind of light flashing or perhaps the USB to go “Mmmmm Yoda I am” but no. We sat there staring for a while. Then this folder pops up on the screen ‘Yoda I am’ I realise much too late that perhaps my wonderful Aunt and Uncle have loaded some random terrible childhood photos on it so I attempt to take it out and convince them that we should watch the movie but they are determined and open the file to find four, half hour long home videos on the memory stick. Oh dear. After some more attempted fails at persuasion we watched them and they were... lets say... funny. :D Thanks Auntie Niki and Uncle B!

Sunday morning! The birthday has begun. It consisted of laying around and sleeping in and being awesome and breakfast in bed and being 19. Then when it felt like it was time to get up and get ready for the world  we went outside and made some plans, however these poor plans got changed 50 times. So everyone was very adamant that I HAD to choose what we did that day as it was my birthday and all, only I felt more like making them choose because it was my birthday and I couldn’t be bothered choosing.. So first plan that they actually made on Saturday at the hutte was to surprise me and take me to Salzburg for the day. Second plan was to hike up to the Schikenspitzer (I have not a clue how to spell this mountain..) but it is the mountain that I look at out my window everyday and want to climb so super desperately. But doing this requires some organization as we would have to ask Heli if we could use the equipment and then the bell went off in their heads as I hobbled down from the hutte that my hip was broken and I had two cuts on my feet from cleaning.. (with no shoes on.. I thought I could hobbit it up a bit..) so they decided against it. Also our guide turned out to be busy to then there is that.. third plan which was made Sunday morning was to go to Haldstaat which is apparently a super lovely town on the other side of the Dachstein and it is on a lake and it is really pretty. But by the time we all got ready to go it was decided that it was too late in the day to make such a journey as morning is optimal. So then we get to plan number four, which turns out to be plan number one! We ultimately decided to go to Salzburg at about.. 3 then wander and look around then of course go to McDonalds for dinner and finish the night off with a movie.

After the painful course of choosing something I skyped my wonderful Father for an hour and a half then had a nap on the couch outside which was also glorious. By that time it was leaving time so I grabbed my crocheting stuff (one must never leave the house without it) and got in the car. The party crew consisted of Nat, Ben, Suza, Julia, Josh, Kendra and I. To make life more exciting Nat remembered that Luke said he wanted to come so we drive to the river spot and shout at him across a field “Luke! Us! Salzburg! Go! Now!” so he biked like a mad man back home as we chased him and he got is stuff and we were finally on our journey! The drive to Salzie is about an hour so we all enjoyed some good conversation as we drove through the Alps and I finished Ben’s rainbow hippie headband which is amazing. Yay! Salzburg!

First of all, it was boiling hot there. And we couldn’t find a parking space but then in the end we did of course. We walked over to this lovely garden and there was an Italian market out the front! So we walked along and tried all the taste tester things. There was this beyond incredible meat and cheese stand. Wow. Then for a wander about the gorgeous garden park type thing and there was taking of a million photos; with bushes, with flowers, with unicorn statues, with fountains. We decided that we had had enough of flowers and went on to the buildings, they were so beautiful and there was a huge fountain that we of course got our photo by. Ben and I found a really gorgeous statue that we made friends with, it sorta looked like a Ring Wraith.. Then I may have ran across a giant chess board while there was a game going on because Nat suggested that we have 19 minutes of tickling for my birthday. I didn’t like that idea. Let’s just say the old man wasn’t too happy... Next stop the main shopping street! Were we of course bought some eis and I went and gawked at the Austrian hats and Nat says, you need to buy one MacKenzie! It’s your birthday! So.. I did. :D It is amazing and I love it and it even has a feather! Then there was some photo taking at the beautiful river that runs right through the middle of the city. Next up, dinner! And I am not sure if this truly is a tradition or if I just made it up.. but I feel like every year my family goes to McDonalds for breakfast on our birthday so I had to keep the tradition alive so we went there for dinner. I got a ridiculously amazing McFlurry. It was a Magnum Brownie McFlurry. Oh my word. At this point this random guy comes up and asks Josh, “Hey wanna go get a beer?” Josh says no. But he keeps asking and his friend was like “Don’t worry he’s not gay..” So we ask why he wants to have a beer so badly with Josh and he says, “Because you look like a bro!” At this point there was some laughter.. Then we got kicked out of the McDonalds garden because they were closing so we went to the river to chill while we waited for our movie to start. Suza, Julia and Luke wandered off while Nat, Ben, Josh, Kendra and I thought that it would be a good idea to play Pin the Tail on the Donkey while we waited..

Have you ever played PTTOTD not in a house or a backyard? It proves to be a little bit dangerous. We searched for a place to hang it up and found the fence that goes along the river. So it is like fence, steep hill, river. So Nat gets the camera and is our videographer. You see me pumping everyone up get them ready for this Extreme PTTOTD then the blindfold goes on, some spinning action starts, Nat wanders with the camera showing you the scenery when you hear this KAJLDGHSIEL, she turns around and you see me on the ground laughing and everyone else laughing around me. Turns out that spinning around blindfolded by a steep hill with only a fence protecting you is not such a good idea. My foot slid under the fence and brought me down with it. So there was that.. So we tried again! This time no one got injured and I got it perfectly on the butt! Hooray! By about this time we thought we should head over to the movie.

Salzburg is almost more beautiful at night then during the day. The lights reflecting on the river and the moon and stars it was just stunning! On our way to the theatre we saw some girls playing in a fountain getting their clothes all wet and this old lady stops us and says, “Doesn’t that just look like so much fun?” I guess she figured out that we spoke English and she continues to ask us where we are from and Luke says, “Washington State” she gets all excited, “I lived there for 6 months!” Then Josh says, “California” she gets even more excited and says, “I lived there for 5 years!” She goes on to show us a picture of her and Tom Cruise and her and Arnold (you know the one) and she is giving us copies of these photos and she tells us that she was a Ballerina and has performed in all the prestigious centres around the world and how connect to Russia she was. She was the most interesting lady and I really just wanted to sit down with her and have her tell all her stories but our movie was starting so we had to leave her. After we left her Nat goes, “I knew she was some kind of famous actress type lady, just from the way that she carries herself.”

Last stop on the list was the movie theatre! We could only find one English movie.. one called Midnight in Paris with Owen Wilson. Let’s just say it was an interesting film... It was good and funny but a little bit confusing. It is hard to describe my feelings towards this film, you might just have to go and see it for yourself. This theatre was the only theatre that I have ever been in where it was actually hot inside. Usually they are freezing. But no, this one you were sitting there with a thin layer of sweat on your brow. Not nice. So walking back to our car we passed the fountain where the girls were playing in earlier.. and I just really got the urge to run through it.. So I did! It was brilliant! Except for the fact that I was cold and wet the whole car ride back home.. We got home and I went to bed. Thus concludes my amazing birthday in Austria. It was thoroughly enjoyable and thank you to all those involved in making it awesome.

So over the next couple of days all the summer staff left and the new staff arrived. Ben left Monday morning; Josh, Bastian and Jonathan left Tuesday morning; Kendra left Thursday morning and Suza left Friday morning. This week has been filled with hard goodbyes and hellos. And a whole crap load of anticipation for the new students to arrive.

They are all coming today. I see about 10 of them outside my window and I want to go say hi to them! I see one who I knew from Upward Bound so I am about to have a joyous reunion.

Well I hope this was a satisfactory blog for all those who wanted to hear about my birthday and I apologize for not having written one for so long. But here you go! Until next time.